Lies My Father Told Me
by michael1812
Summary: The Uncharted Territories are a tough place to grow up in but at least Deke has his family. Stark's arrival exposes a terrible secret. Cruel irony in a twist of fate puts John Crichton in the one position he never thought he'd find himself in.


Squeaking wheels rushed through the maintenance bay with a limp. String held the improvized trolly together. Memory dulled the mind as they sped past the welcoming party in a blur. Someone was screaming.

The long-haired Banik was an ocean of calm compared to his thrashing patient. None of them thought they could find someone even more manic than him. Stark was in a hurry to get him sedated and he too could've used some rest.

Deke watched him nervously shake his mother's hand as Chiana and Jothee took over pushing the trolly into the medbay. Why was she crying? He almost thought she would pass out.

"I almost thought you didn't receive my transmission," Stark told her. "If you hadn't been here..."

"We were here. That's all that matters," Aeryn said.

Somehow Stark always looked as if something had just spooked him. There was something about his mother that always seemed to make Stark nervous. Deke couldn't blame him. He knew what she was like. She could be scary. But he'd never seen her like this before.

"It's okay," John told his son as his warm hands cupped the boy's shoulders. "We're gonna take care of this. We always do."

Deke nodded. His breath seemed to have got stuck in his throat.

"What are we going to tell him?" Stark asked Aeryn.

"Come on," John said as he gently guided his son away from the tension in the maintenance bay. He held his hand. Neither really wanted to know what had really happened to Stark's patient.

Deke knew what a dangerous universe it was out there. He didn't need his dad to tell him that, nor keep reminding him of it every day of his young life. He'd seen the strangest things and even got used to stranger.

There's a hovering slug in his bedroom playing a boardgame against itself, an albino girl's promised to teach him how to swear in ten different languages and a blue crab is piloting this entire living ship across the universe and he's supposed to think that's crazy. He's never known anything else. They are his friends. His dad is his best friend. He's never alone with him around.

While Pilot reminded them his mother would be ready with dinner in fifteen microts Stark paid a little visit to him. It's been a while since they last saw each other. Cycles even. They were good friends once.

When he was little he used to drag him from one room to the other by his sleeves. Playmates dying to show each other their latest toys. Stark had his own. He was intrigued by gadgets. There were even some secrets he only shared with Deke when no-one was looking. He'd tell him it was extremely confidential but after some prodding the Banik would tell him anyway. Most of the time there weren't any problems but sometimes Stark had to take a break from playing. At least that's what his mother always told him and he never understood why. He used to think he just had to go to the bathroom really badly. Some days he bounced from wall to wall in excitement but sometimes he'd catch him crying and he didn't know why.

"Remember what your mother said," his father reminded him. "Uncle Stark's a good guy but sometimes he can be a little unwell in the head, got that?"

Deke nodded again. They always met under careful supervision and from experience Deke knew his parents were hard to elude. Stark approached with a weary pace; obiously tired from a long journey, but he just had to make a stop by his favourite nephew. John sat on the bed reading starcharts pretending he wasn't there while Stark entered their quarters.

"Do you know what's going on in the medbay?" he asked Deke.

"No," Deke said. "But you do. So why are you asking me?"

"You're not even curious?"

The Banik had his long hair combed over the right side of his face to hide his featureless flesh face. (Stark never called it a deformity. Somehow he seemed happy with it.) His one eye gazed intently at him as if there was something he was supposed to be hiding.

"He was screaming. And bleeding. Who was he?"

Stark seemed more comforted now. At ease. "He's my friend."

Deke didn't know why he was being told this. He looked up at his dad but he was still pretending to read.

"Do you still have that ball I gave you?" Stark asked him. "That really expensive toy."

"You told me you stole it."

"Doesn't mean it's not expensive."

Stark had given it to him as a gift cycles ago when he last saw him. Deke felt a tendency to whisper with his father in the room. "Yes."

"Would you get it for me?" Stark asked.

Deke had to remember where he put it. This wasn't even his room but he had most of his stuff lying around here anyway. There was stuff of his littering every room even though his mom keeps telling him to clean up. Chiana likes it. A personal touch. Even Rygel refrained from taking it. He had drawings hung up on the walls of every room in Moya. His art. Sometimes he would walk in a room no-one had been in for a long time and found a really old drawing of his taped to the wall in the corner from when he could barely draw. Just two stick figures, Moya and the others in bright basic colours and a lot of gold.

He quickly found Stark's squishy ball hidden behind a grate underneath his bed. When he presented it to the Banik he looked up from the ball in his hands and remembered the birthday long ago when he first laid eyes on this precious thing. Stark said he'd got it from some faraway complicated place. He travels so far; yet somehow in this vast universe (even with the chaotic nature of Starburst to boot) Stark always had a knack of finding them or for being found.

Deke thought he would be glad to see it again but instead the Banik looked agitated. It almost felt like he was holding Stark's heart and he wanted it back. This little organic and lumpy ball which he threw up and down into the air. Stark grabbed it instantly.

"Did you tell your mother about this?" he hissed as he looked over his shoulder's and then Deke's.

"No!"

Stark nodded.

"Are you okay?" Deke asked.

"No," Stark said. "No, no, no...the question is: are you okay?"

"Deke?" He heard his father's voice calling for him from their quarters.

"Did you ever go back in?" Stark asked. Impatient. He grabbed the boy's shoulder.

"You're hurting me..."

"Did you go back in?"

"No! I never needed to!"

Bewildered, Stark let go to mull over the questions and answers in his mind's eye. Deke shushed the Banik to calm down. He'd never seen him like this before. Something was definitely wrong.

"I'll have to tell your mother about this," Stark finally said.

"What? But you promised!"

"I'm sorry I put you through this. It's my fault. She needs to know."

"She'll kill me! She'll kill you! Give it back!"

Deke grabbed for the object in his hands and struggled to hold on as Stark fought back. Stark almost lost it as he ripped it from the boy's clutches.

"I'm doing this...!" he said. "For you!"

Deke was sick of the apologies. Sick of the pity.

"What the hell is going on here?" a voice suddenly said, catching Stark off guard. He ran off with the game ball. "Hey!"

Confused as always, his dad watched Stark run away. "What the hell just happened? Deke?"

Deke walked up to his dad. "He took the game ball."

"He did what?" John said. The same old blue eyes.

"He's going to show it to Mom."

"That was our secret! Man..." John said, before putting an arm on his son's shoulder. "Yeah, that sucks. But weren't you getting a little bit too old for that anyway?"

Deke looked away.

"Damn, you're getting tall," John said whilst ruffling his hair.

"I know it's just a game, Dad," he said. "But it's just important to me. And now Mom's gonna see it."

"She would've seen it anyway, son."

"No!" Deke said. That wasn't it.

"Listen, I'm going to talk to her, okay? I'm going to make it all right."

Deke shrugged off his father's helping hand and it fell off his shoulder.

"What're you gonna do? Tell her it's yours?"

"Well, technically it is, son. They're my memories."

But Deke had other plans. He snuck away to pay a visit to Chiana. He found her with her back turned to the door dipping fingers into pots of sauce and spices in the kitchen. She just wanted to be caught.

"You're not going to tell your mother, are you?" she smiled. "She won't be back for another microt. Told me to hold the fort."

"I need you to steal something," Deke cut to the chase. He had to get that ball back before his mother would see.

"What? What did I tell you about stealing? Huh?" she flicked his ear and he flinched. It only worsened his grouchy resolve. Fed up, he left.

"Where are you going? Get back here!" Chiana cried after him.

"I should've talked to Rygel..."

"Hey!"

If she wasn't going to help him he'd have to find another way. He almost bumped into Jothee but he didn't care. The half Luxan smiled in passing but Deke ignored him. He was just Chiana's boyfriend...Or ex, depending on the time of month.

Suddenly he heard his mother's voice over the comms. It was over.

"Deke, where are you?" she asked.

He stormed off without replying.

"D'ARGO SUN-CRICHTON," Aeryn said stressing each word. She always called him D'Argo when she was mad at him. "This is your mother. I need you. Here. I don't care about some stupid ball. You hear me? Get to the medbay. Now."

He was summoned. Deke cursed the ceiling.

His boots seemed to become heavier with each step he took in the right direction. He reluctantly bore his psychological ball and chains that dragged him to his mother. You would've thought he would have gotten used to this drill sergeant treatment by now but every day he just grew more bitter enduring the constant orders and punishment. He knew the drill.

He sarcastically presented himself to his mother by marching into the medbay and addressing her as 'sir'. Her anger was shaking. Tears were streaming down his mother's face and only a part of him flinched when he realized it. He gave up on the act but refused to give up his independence.

"Stubborn like your mother," his dad told him. He was in the room with her. And Stark.

There was someone lying in the bed. The screaming man they'd brought in an arn ago. His mother clung to his bedside and still Deke didn't know what was going on. A part of him didn't want to know.

"We found him," his mother told him. She exuded strength, stood tall and beamed sudden exuberance. Only now did Deke realize he had mistaken her joy for sadness. She was happy.

It's been so long since he'd seen her happy.

A great wave of joy and relief washed over her while Deke felt nothing. She took his hand and lead him to the bed. Still he didn't see the man. All he could see was a brown beard and bushy hair.

"I told you," Aeryn's voice cracked. "I promised. All those cycles ago. I'd find your father."

John jumped at Deke's side.

"What?" Deke asked.

"He was captured by the Scarrans but I freed him. I did. I found him and I brought him here. He was dying but I saved him..." Stark started telling almost too excited.

"Stark, shut up. What's wrong?" Aeryn said.

Deke looked her in the eyes as the words came to him. He'd heard what they said but he felt no connection to the man in the bed: felt not even a sting of recognition.

"That's not my father," he said. "My dad is right here."

He looked up at John standing beside him. Aeryn and Stark saw nothing for there was nothing there.

Aeryn squeezed the ball in her hand then her son ran away. Not even Rygel could find him then. He'd taught him too well.

He'd sit in the dark to contemplate somewhere near one of Moya's vital machinery. The sound of fluids being pumped through her system almost drowned out all thought but his father was still there rubbing his brow and vocalizing his inner turmoil.

"That can't be..." John tried to reason. _"THAT CAN'T BE HIM!"_

John pinched himself, kicked the wall and poked his eye: anything to prove to himself he was real while Deke stared into the distance.

"I'm real, damnit! I'm not HARVEY!"

He turned to his son to say anything at all to comfort him or convince him he was real but Deke had blended in with his environment.

John crouched in front of him in the dark to look at the reflection in his eyes. A mirror image.

"I'm your father," he said. "I know you. I love you."

Not even that could illicit a response from him. It was almost as if he'd gone completely catatonic. John raged at the walls.

"I have all these memories. All these feelings. They can't be fake. I can't just be the product of your imagination..."

The answer soon dawned on him. The ball. Stark's mindgame. Literally. Stark had once sold his memories to some kind of game maker and he'd turned it into a virtual reality simulation featuring Lewis Carrol and Errol Flynn's worst nightmares.

He could've been part of that. He could've been made from that. Deke had lied when he told Stark he hadn't used it. He knew that. What he didn't realize is how much. He'd been in that virtual mess of his memories so long it could've given him an imprint of his father in his mind. Maybe it's part mechanics part psychology. He was simply wished into existence.

He's alive only because his son wants him to be. Needs him to be.

And as the extent of his madness dawned on John it also dawned on Deke.

"It's over, son," John told him as he saw a tear fall down the boy's cheek. He ruffled a hand through the boy's hair one last time as he tried to keep himself from crying too. The same tear.

"I'm not real. Maybe I shouldn't be. Well, maybe I should be, but that's not what really happened. That guy with the ugly mug in the medbay. He's your real father. And he's been fighting to see you again. He's been holding on to the very notion of seeing you again and holding you in his arms. I know, because that's what I would do...

"No simulation will ever match the real thing, let me tell you that. To hold your dad in your arms and hold him close and hug him and feel his smelly warm breath in your face and feel his beard scrape your skin as he kisses you. Just the tiny things. Those are the moments that count...

"I'm just an echo. I'm trying to remember what it was like to hold you in my arms for the first time when you were a baby and I can't. _I can't._ And it's killing me. It's time for me to go and I'm going to miss you so much. (laughs) Who am I kidding? I won't exist anymore. I won't miss anything.

"He's here. Your dad. It's time to let me go."

"I know."

One last smile.

"Goodbye son."

Deke closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was gone.

He returned to the medbay to find his mother still holding vigil at the sick man's bedside and holding his hand. Deke cried as he placed his hand atop theirs.

When the man woke up he smiled through a bushy beard. He could barely look through his swollen and tortured eyes but he saw him.

"I know you," he said.

"You're my father," Deke said and he fell into his arms.


End file.
